That's kind of how I feel, Doug. A lot of people say that it looks pure, but to me, there are a couple little things that just nag me, and say there's got to be something more to it. Several of my black rats have different head shapes, but his head is flatter than any of my others. Look at it again in the side picture. Also, he has keeled scaled starting about 2/3 of the way back. None of my black rats have keeled scales. Maybe this is just a locality thing, and he's genetically from a more southern locale of black rat, where they come with less black in them and more of other colors. As a baby, it did look 100% black rat. However, how many different strains of albino, lavender, hypo, etc. . . look the exact same as babies, and turn into completely different animals?

Draybar, this is more in reference to what you said-
I guess the biggest reason I bring this up every once in a while is this- I've still never seen a single snake that looked like him. In colors, the closest I've ever found was an albino emoryi rat snake, and a creamsicle corn. Maybe if I hadn't seen those, or if I saw a black rat that looked more like him, I wouldn't question it. Really, what I'm hoping for by posting some pictures every once in a while is someone to chime in and say, "OH! I have a black rat that looks EXACTLY like that. Here, compare!" Maybe someone who has that line Doug is thinking of will see this, and post something about it. There are a lot of people who check these boards now who didn't the last time I posted pics, and as I said, he's changed a bit. If you compare these pics to the last ones, he has a lot more red in him now than he did 2 years ago, and much bolder colors, compared to the soft tones he had when those last pics were taken.

As Toby said, attitude really isn't a giveaway. I have Everglades who have worse attitudes than any Texas rat I've ever seen, so I do know that. . . But at the same time, I've NEVER seen, or even heard of at CB black rat with an attitude similar to his. Wild caughts, I've seen with attitudes. But normally even long term captive wild caughts are pretty friendly, and half the time, they're friendly right off the bat.

While nothing individually really says he's not pure black rat, the fact that he has the attitude, doesn't look like any other I've seen, has keeled scales that none of my black rats do (but my Everglades do, and I'm not sure what other subspecies do), and has a flatter head shape, similar to other species (and subspecies) of rat snakes, compared to the sloping nose I'm used to in black rats.



Also- Blue, it's definitely not a T albino. This animal is definitely amelanistic, without any brown color. He's bright orange, with a bit of yellow & red thrown in. If you want, I could e-mail you some pictures, if you're curious to see what I'm talking about. Just send me a PM through here, and I'll send them to you. T albino normally have a brown, or "lavender" look to them. If I'm correct, T albino animals aren't actually amelanistic, they simply don't process the melanin correctly. It shows up, but in a different way than the "normal." Going by the standard term, "albino" means lacking pigment. Technically, ANY animal that lacks a certain pigment normally present in that animal is albino. Thus, leucistics are a type of albino, even though when we hear/say albino, we think amelanistic. Anyone care to correct me?


thanks for the responses, guys!
Ronnie Nocera

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